Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

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Recordings

Hyperion’s Strauss Lieder series is fast becoming a worthy successor to the seminal Schubert and Schumann Lieder sets on the label. In this third volume, the wonderful young British tenor Andrew Kennedy performs a range of songs, from favourites such ...» More

'Christine Brewer … combine opulent, blazing tone, fearless top notes and surprising agility' (The Daily Telegraph)'Christine Brewer in magisterial voice … a major project, beautifully performed and presented' (The Independent)» More

'This remarkable German soprano takes us on some giddy flights with superb breath control and a quite amazing concentration of vocal energy. But she n ...'It's hard to dispute Roger Vignoles's claim that Anne Schwanewilms is 'a great singing actress'. That's clear in every song, where both the overall t ...» More

What is the purpose, my sweet, Of trying to deceive me? Bid your new bliss a joyful welcome And say openly that you’re in love!

The quickened stirring of your breast, The way your blushes come and go, Have long since revealed your secret To fountains and flower-sprites.

The waves murmur it in caverns, The evening breezes whisper it, Wherever you go, you hear them mocking: We’ve known it a long time, child!

English: Richard Stokes

The initial interplay of piano and voice perfectly establishes a mood of affectionate banter. A delicious step to A major (‘daß du liebst!’) launches us into the heart of the matter, interweaved with a figure suggestive of Der Rosenkavalier (or is it an echo of Till Eulenspiegel?) and gently mocking chords that anticipate the Falcon’s theme in Die Frau ohne Schatten. Already in this tiny song the mature opera composer can be heard.

In his next three sets of songs, Strauss concentrated – with the exception of one song to a translation of Michelangelo – on verses by the well known Munich poet Graf Adolf Friedrich von Schack. Breit’ über mein Haupt is distinguished by its high arching phrases, illustrative of the imagined spread of the beloved’s hair above the poet’s head, and the solemn and splendid harmonies with which they are underpinned.

Beautiful but cold are the stars of heaven, Meagre the gifts that they bestow; For just one of your glances I’d gladly forego their golden gleam!

Apart, so that we suffer without end, They only bring throughout the year The autumn with its sheaves of corn And springtime’s splendid flowering.

But your eyes, ah, a whole year’s blessing Cascades abundantly from them On flowers and fruit like incessant gentle rain, Blossom and fruit together.

English: Richard Stokes

‘Beautiful but cold are the stars of heaven’: if Strauss misses a trick at the opening of this song, it is in failing to give any impression of the stars’ coldness as opposed to their beauty. But from the start the music is suffused with the warmth of the beloved’s glance, as in the very similar Seitdem dein Aug’, with which it shares its 3-4 time signature and relatively straightforward lyricism. If like that song it also tends to overstate its case, it does so with great charm.

Strauss, always finely attuned to vocal nuance, towards the end of the previous song introduced a novel piece of notation, indicating an upward portamento on the word ‘Nacht’. Wie sollten wir, a breathless declaration of the impossibility of keeping secret the love that binds the singer and his beloved, is positively showered with slides, but this time in a downward direction. In keeping with such operatic delivery, the piano part is characteristically orchestral, with ecstatically repeated triplet chords evocative of the Act III Prelude of Lohengrin or the opening of Elisabeth’s aria in Tannhäuser. In verse three the left-hand horn-calls – at ‘Selbst aus der Eiche morschem Stamm’ – are the natural response of any German composer to the idea of unity with Nature.

Hoping and then despairing, Waiting and listening by her balcony, In case, borne by the wind, A sound from her might reach me, Thus for many months now Day has succeeded day.

Late in the evening, when ever more silently Night settles over the desolate land, My weary eyelids sink And I sleep for a short while; From dreams of her I am jolted awake to fresh grief.

But I beseech you, heaven: Do not steal my dearest treasure, This enchanting pain That I’ve nourished with my heart’s blood! May it blaze ever higher, this fire In which I blissfully perish!

English: Richard Stokes

The singer’s alternate hoping and despairing are eloquently pictured in this richly coloured, inventive setting. Again there is an echo of an earlier song, such is the consistency of Strauss’s response to von Schack’s poetry. At the words ‘Spät, wenn stumm und stummer / Nacht’ we hear again the ominous tread of Aus den Liedern der Trauer in Opus 17. The piano postlude continues the intense yearning of the climax, only to fall away once more in a reprise of the singer’s opening words.

Strauss devoted three Opus numbers to settings of poems by Graf Adolf Friedrich von Schack. Schack was a noteworthy patron of the arts as well as an important literary figure and his Munich mansion housed a fine collection of modern German paintings. It is therefore not surprising that his poems are full of visual imagery, to which Strauss responded in kind. Mein Herz ist stumm is a fine example, in which verbal and musical images are perfectly matched. Sombre A flat minor chords laced with icy dissonances depict the poet’s frozen heart, into which the piano gradually infiltrates a pattern of triplets, and the warmth of a modulation to G flat major. From here on the texture becomes increasingly orchestral, as a magnificent spring-like landscape emerges, with running streams and distant horn-calls. But the happiness is illusory, the echoes fade and the piano chords become bleaker and emptier. The last line of the song repeats the opening bars, but this time with no hope of relief.